


Innocence is Not Ignorance

by pixelizedRifles



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Cute, Cute Nico, Cutesy, Fluff, I understand love now, Inner Dialogue, Love, M/M, Nico is a Dork, Nico is a Hipster, One Shot, Romance, The concept of love, True Love, solangelo, this is kinda a vent fic, thoughts, whoops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-23
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-04-10 19:00:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4403492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixelizedRifles/pseuds/pixelizedRifles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a sense, that’s what Nico found the most beautiful about love.  No words alone could truly describe the depths of one’s affections.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Innocence is Not Ignorance

**Author's Note:**

> Just a cutesy little one-shot. Not Homestuck (like usual) but I thought I'd broaden out a little. I'm in a lot of fandoms, believe it or not.

Maybe he was just old-schooled, but Nico di Angelo wasn’t a big fan on the modern idea of “love.”

 

Don’t get him wrong, he was definitely a part of the LGBT community, and he’d fully support that until the day he died. He was glad—grateful, even, that they had finally gotten their rights to marry freely in all fifty states.

 

But…Relationship Goals? Woman-Crush-Wednesdays? Shipping? Types? The words were all lost on Nico’s ears.

 

He found himself disagreeing, sometimes even laughing, at society’s idea of a perfect relationship. Apparently, one was not really “in love” if they didn’t tweet about it every five seconds.

 

In every book he’s ever read, there are signs. There are butterflies in your tummy around the person you love, little jolts of electricity when you hold hands, fireworks when you finally kiss. It all seemed so cliché—so horribly _fake._

To Nico, love was none of that.

 

Love, unlike depression or ADHD, could not be diagnosed or broken down into symptoms. Of course, there were little ways to _assume_ that one was in love, but how did someone know that what they felt was truly love at its finest form?

 

It definitely wasn’t sugar plumbs and Wonderland, despite the popular belief. It hurt like Tartarus. It hurt _worse_ than Tartarus. He couldn’t explain it, the pain he felt over loving someone. It was like drowning, a sinking feeling in your chest; a throbbing headache in your mind as your beloved sprints their way through your thoughts, painting themselves on every wall until you can’t escape them.

 

In a sense, that’s what Nico found the most beautiful about love. No words alone could truly describe the depths of one’s affections.

 

In society’s eyes, Will was a charmer, but probably no more than a 7 or an 8. To the world, he was nowhere near that perfection that everyone so mindlessly strived to find. But to Nico? Perfection wasn’t broad enough term.

 

No matter how many morning texts he’s come across, no matter how many love quotes he’s looked up on Tumblr, there has never been enough words to describe what Nico felt. 26 letters just wasn’t cutting it – Will Solace was too complex for the English literacy to label.

 

He was just so…Will. Compared to what Nico had felt for Percy, the love he held for Will was like a volcanic eruption, wiping out everything in its path until the ashes of what was left behind lay.

 

Looking back to Percy, Nico had loved him for all the wrong reasons. If he could even call what he felt love. Though, if the girls on Tumblr could do it, he supposed he could too.

 

Nico’s love for Will didn’t involve any of the cliché’s. No electricity, no butterflies, no fireworks. In the beginning, he was a bit nervous, but now that he had gotten to know the son of Apollo, he had never been more at ease.

 

He felt giddy when he was with Will, he felt _safe._ There was nothing in the world that he wanted more than to see the blonde’s smile first thing in the morning—Hades, he wanted to see him smile all the time.

 

Nico wanted to be there for him when he was upset, he wanted to kiss all of his insecurities away. He wanted to hold him, and be held, and laugh at all the people who told them that they’d never last.

 

Nudes, being tagged in cute pictures on Instagram, sloppy make outs on the couch? Sure, they weren’t the last things on his list, but they were certainly nowhere near the beginning either. He’d take them if they were offered, but he wouldn’t throw a fit if they weren’t.

 

Nico could say a lot of things that would describe partly how he felt for Will. He loved his laugh, his smile. The cute way the blonde’s nose would crinkle when he was irritated, or how he ran his hand through his hair when he was nervous. The freckles that littered his face were precious, and though he’d never admit to it, he loved the surprise hugs the son of Apollo would give him when he was lost in his thoughts.

 

He loved how down to earth he was, how much he strived to help people. He adored his voice, even when he was sick and it got all raspy. The passion and the determination that Will put into everything was something to look up to from Nico’s perspective, and he reveled in telling the new campers to grow up as strong as somebody like him.

So yeah, maybe Will sang worse than Leo in the shower. Maybe he couldn’t write little romantic notes or poems without somehow messing them up. He had muscle, yeah, but he was no Hercules. He couldn’t protect Nico from monsters, let alone defeat a baby hellhound.

 

So what if was hopeless with a bow-and-arrow and somehow worse with a sword? So what if Will wasn’t experience in sex, or relationships in that matter? Why did it matter that he was so annoyingly persistent about Nico’s health that it made the son of Hades want to rip his hair out?

 

To Nico, he saw Will’s flaws just as everyone else did. But he accepted them, loved them just as much as he loved the little good morning/night kisses the blonde would plant on his nose, or the bags of Swedish Fish he brought him because he knew that Nico loved them.

 

He didn’t see Will as his knight in shining armor, nor did he see him as a princess that needed protected. He saw him as an equal, and he _loved_ him with everything he had.

 

Despite how many times he’s been called dense, or stupid, or dumb, he really wasn’t all that. Misunderstood? Yes. A bit lacking in common sense? Definitely. But Nico thought a lot more than most people, finding answers to questions not yet asked, mysteries of the universe that no one had yet to question.

 

Most of all, he thought of Will. He thought of his smile the most – Gods it was like sunshine. He thought of all the memories they’ve shared, all the laughs, all the fights. And he loved every last bit of it.

 

To Nico, Will wasn’t his _baby_ , or his _prince._ He wasn’t someone to have cuddles with in the afternoon, or sex with at nighttime. He wasn’t someone to show off on social media with a little winky face next to the comment _“Mine.”_ He wasn’t someone who could automatically fix everything wrong in his life, or solve every problem with a sloppy kiss.

No, to Nico, Will was somebody to love. With Will by his side, even though the bad days, Nico was truly, finally, happy.

 

And in that happiness, he basked in his lover’s sunlight.


End file.
